Luigi Pirandello

Luigi Pirandello (1867-1936), a novelist and perhaps the most significant modern Italian playwright, was born in Agrigento, Sicily, the ancient Akragas. He claimed to be of Greek descent and that his surname was a corruption of the Greek Pyrangelos. He studied law, literature, and linguistics at the universities of Palermo, Rome, and Bonn, and taught as a professor of Italian literature at the higher institute of the Italian capital. In Rome, Pirandello collaborated with literary magazines, publishing his poems and prose. His first poetry collection was published in 1899. However, the financial ruin of his father in 1903 forced him into a harsh struggle for survival, bringing him to the brink of suicide. In this atmosphere, he wrote his most important novel, "The Late Mattia Pascal" (1904), whose impact established him as a novelist. This was followed by works such as "Old and Young" (1909), "Terzetti" (1912), "The Cards" (1915), among others. What was destined to make him famous worldwide, however, was his theatrical work, the first part of which he composed during another painful period due to his mother's death and his wife's mental illness. His major plays, which crystallized the style known as "Pirandellism," include: "Right You Are (If You Think So)," 1917, "The Pleasure of Honesty," 1917, "All for the Best," 1920, "Six Characters in Search of an Author," 1921, "To Clothe the Naked," 1922, "Tonight We Improvise," 1930, among others. In 1934, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature for his entire body of work. He died in Rome in 1936.